Sunday, February 23, 2014

The doldrums is a colloquial expression derived from historical maritime usage, in which it refers to those parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm.

In other words, take your own risk sailing there, you could be stuck for days without making any forward motion.

Doldrums are also that place in your knitting where you knit and knit and knit, knowing by the decreasing amount of yarn in the ball you are using that you have to be making great forward progress, and yet, somehow, when you look at your knitting you have barely made a dent. Some people also call this edging!

I am in the Doldrums of my Fractal Blanket!

I have used up all the partial balls that were left over from making squares...when there wasn't enough yarn to knit another complete square without joining I put it aside and started a new ball. And, I have used a huge chunk out of another ball of yarn and the end is not in sight. Which isn't really made any better by Andrea hinting that she will soon be posting the next project....in the doldrums of edging I would leap at the chance to cast on the next thing instead of working yet another pattern repeat. Although, the pattern repeats are very pretty and the wider edging I picked from our choices does look ever so nice with the rest of the blanket, at least as far as I can tell with it still on the needles!

As with all lace, really, to know for sure how great it looks I need to finish it up and block it!

Wanna see how it looks so far?

Other than working on that edging my only other knitting has been repair work! Seems like children at my house are getting to be a bit hard on their hand knit socks, two replaced toes (from different pairs) a heel and I still have some repair work to do. At least the toes were easy, I just ripped out the old ones and knit new ones in their place rather than trying to darn them. And quicker than my usual holding them over the garbage can, saying "Darn you sock" and knitting a whole new pair!

I suppose it is back to the doldrums for me....anything exciting on your needles?

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Over the past few weeks the Yarn Harlot has blogged about how knitting in nice, bright, cheery colors helps to offset the grey and white world that we seem to be living in right now. Grey skies, white snow, grey slush on the roads, mounds of white stuff with salt, garbage, dirt showing through to make things really ugly in the mundane world.

Pity I didn't listen to her, all my knitting this week is shades of grey and brown!

This week the group files for the Infinity Knitalong included all the final instructions for the Fractal Blanket. After sewing my 12 squares together I picked up the loops all the way around and started in on Border One. As I didn't knit as many squares, and as I knew that Andrea actually used very little of her contrast color, I knew going into it that I would be making my border deeper than hers, my plan is to knit as long as the yarn holds out and then kick myself because there will be miles of edging to go beyond that....
But in the meantime I read through the rest of the instructions and realized that next I will have to do some fudging. The edging is a multiple of 10 rows, so any multiple of ten stitches per side of the blanket will work, my problem is I went with both an odd and an even number of squares (3 which is odd, by 4 which is even) and that means I will never have a multiple of 10 on both the long and the short sides at the same time!

Friday was Valentine's Day, and I made out like a bandit! Which is even nicer as I didn't expect to get so much as a card from anyone! I didn't even get it all photo'd for the blog, there was another box of truffles that seems to have disappeared somewhere between Friday and today!

TOB wanted to show you all his yarn stash too. At least it will be easy to tell apart from mine!
I have many more rows of Border One to knit, so I am off...with this view out my window knitting is the only sensible thing to do during my bank holiday!
~M

Sunday, February 9, 2014

HBO has a fairly popular television series, The Game of Thrones, which is (mostly) based on a series of books by George RR Martin. In both the books and the show you are following members of several families that each have their own crest and motto. One of the families, The Starks, motto is Winter is Coming.

Forget coming, winter is here and it is certainly making its presence known in Central Ohio!

We had freezing rain, snow, lots of snow, more below 0 degrees F air temps with wind chills added to them. We had delayed days at school, cancelled days at school and no snow plows that seemed to be willing to do anything about the roads near where I work. (The story that went residential side streets have not been cleared but main roads are done was a load of horse feathers, the street where I work is all businesses and had seen nothing in the way of a snow plow or salt truck for days!)

It has to end and soon, if for no other reason that I now have nowhere else to put the snow I take off the driveway as I can't throw it high enough to get it over the mounds that have formed at the edges of my yard from Wednesday's snow and todays additions.

I am ready for spring.

More than ready!

Especially as all this dealing with snow and longer commutes is cutting into my knitting time and all I have to show you for a week is two more squares of my Fractal Blanket.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Yet again I find myself wondering what possessed me to think that moving to somewhere with actual seasons, rather than just warm rain (April through October) and cold rain (November through March). This year even the kids, who in the past have said no to looking to move somewhere more temperate, are coming around to my way of thinking....but it is hard to drag them around when in high school, so maybe I should just tough it out for a few more winters! Not to mention the fact that I have a job here, and selling the house would be easier said than done.

None of my dreaming of someplace less cold was helped by people keep telling me, today, that a certain groundhog says we are in for six more weeks of winter!

I think that what I need is to win the lottery (which won't happen, I don't play!) and a nice warm blanket. (Which will happen, but I am not knitting fast enough!)
Presenting squares One through Ten of the Fractal Blanket from the Infinity KAL Group.
I am using Knit Picks Chroma in Fossil. The Chroma itself is a single ply wool yarn with some variations in the spinning that give it a hand spun look.
I am making no attempt to have the squares match at all, although some almost matching is happening naturally. I have been blocking the squares as I go so that when I am good and tired of knitting them I will be ready for the next step.
I really think that this pattern would make a great baby blanket, it is sheer will power (or maybe lack of hours in the day) that has stopped me from digging through my baby yarn collection and casting on for one.

But as it is still chilly here, I will leave you to your knitting now...I have a few more squares to knit before I have a blanket!